Recently, researching Japan’s interest rate hikes, I suddenly realized that this country is already finished—their entire advantageous industries will be replaced.
Even the AV and anime industries—this is one of the few things Japan can still reverse-export to Europe and America: its cultural industries.
It will also be hit by AI’s dimensionality reduction attack.
In today’s AI pornographic short clips, the female lead can be whatever you want— the plots are also wildly imaginative, limited only by your imagination!
As for the future of these two industries, they’re probably going to collapse even faster than Toyota.
Let’s start with scale.
In 2024, Japan’s animation industry reached a market size of 3.84 trillion yen, a historic high. The adult AV industry is 2.3 trillion yen.
Together, they’re over 6 trillion yen—about 1% of Japan’s GDP.
This isn’t a small business. This is Japan’s last two cultural cards that can still make money from foreigners.
Then AI stabs in with one cut.
AV: The production cost for a live-action film is 3 to 5 million yen. A newcomer actress’ pay is 150,000 to 200,000 yen.
AI-generated shorts of the same quality—less than 2 RMB for 10 minutes. No per-clip royalties. No contracts. Infinite mass production.
Animation: a 4-minute animated short—once took two years to draw.
In one week: the key animator draws frame by frame; the in-between artist fills in frame by frame; the coloring team layers on color—cut them all.
One person + one computer + one model—topples an entire production line.
Then look at unemployment.
In Japan’s animation industry, there are tens of thousands directly employed, and tens of thousands more indirectly in the supply chain. At the bottom, assistant animators’ annual pay is under 2 million yen—less than 100,000 RMB. The first thing AI cuts is them—lowest barrier, strongest substitutability.
Not to mention AV. From adult content creators to production, post-production, and distribution—an entire industry chain. With free unlimited AI porn, who would still pay for licensed originals?
Two industry chains—hundreds of thousands of jobs’ worth of positions. AI swallows them all in one bite.
The darkest kind of dark humor is that the blades are all made in China and the US—Japan can’t even sharpen one itself.
Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications 2025 white paper:
National enterprise AI usage rate is 26.7%. The AI talent gap by 2030 is 124,000. While others are racing to fine-tune large-model parameters, Japan hasn’t even figured out how to use Excel.
Now, let’s talk about shorting.
First in line: the Nikkei 225 index. Rate hikes lock in the FX rate + AI destroys the pillar of cultural exports + population decline = triple knockout. The last foreign-exchange cash cow gets slaughtered—why wouldn’t the index fall?
Second in line: Toei Animation (4816.T)—Japan’s largest animation production studio. The “wall” built on stacking hand-drawn capacity—AI just dismantles it.
Toho (9602.T)—the leading distributor of animated films. Its IP moat is made of paper. Kadokawa (9468.T)—a full-industry chain of manga + animation + light novels; content costs go to zero, and the first thing to collapse is content.
IG Port (3791.T)—they make a living by manual key-frame insertion and in-betweening. AI chews the bones down to nothing.
Third in line: CyberAgent (4751.T)—ABEMA pulls in traffic with adult content. AI porn is free and unlimited—who would bother to recharge?
Go long on the target:
Kuaishou (http://1024.HK)—its GoLive AI video platform has over 30% global share. ARR breaks 240 million USD. The split IPO values it at 18 billion.
Who’s making AI porn shorts? More than half is made by GoLive. Adobe (ADBE)—Firefly video AI is eating the animation toolchain.
Watch the not-yet-listed ones: Runway (valuation 5.3 billion), Pika (valuation 0.8 billion). Someday the IPO comes, and they’ll snap it up immediately.
Rate hikes lock in FX. AI locks the industry. Double kill.
Do you think Japan is losing because of AV and anime?
Japan loses because—while the whole world is using AI to make things, Japan can’t even build AI itself.
Others use AI to get rich. Japan gets raided by AI at the house.
This is Japan’s last time being abandoned by the times. Because what can be abandoned is already gone.
